Galactic Conquest
by The King of Soda
Summary: A chance encounter with a mysterious wormhole has marooned the Enterprise crew in a galaxy far, far away. But they soon discover their troubles are only beginning, as a conflict is brewing that could threaten to engulf the entire Alpha Quadrant...


Galactic Conquest

CHAPTER 1: First Impressions

In the far reaches of the universe, in a galaxy far, far away from the Milky Way, at the edges of a remote, insignificant star system far removed from the major hyperlanes, the folds of space parted open in a swirling vortex of light and energy. From this gaping maw emerged a lone starship. Behind the starship, the swirling vortex vanished, fading into nothingness with a seemingly melancholy sigh, as though the phenomenon itself knew of the fate that awaited its brief passengers. Marooned in the system, alone and without support, the starship could not survive long, nor could its many inhabitants. The starship slid across the plane of the ecliptic, illuminating it as bright as day, and in that eternity-spanning second that light passed over the saucer's hull, black lettering shone dark as polished obsidian. To any being who understood the English language, they would instantly recognize the words:

USS _Enterprise_ NCC-1701-E.

And then it was gone, dark shadows etched across the surface of the hull chasing away these phantom particles of light, engulfing it darkness.

On the bridge of the _Enterprise_-E, Captain Jean-Luc Picard sat, bald and commanding, though at present he appeared more confused than anything else. This expression was mirrored in those around him; the bearded man sitting beside him; the long-haired woman on the other side of that; and in the many ensigns, lieutenants, and enlisted personnel strewn about the smoothly contoured bridge.

Then the bridge came alive with activity again. Ensigns and other supernumeraries resumed their duties, sifting through sensor logs and data charts. The Captain blinked, and this overly simple act seemed to jog him to his senses. Sitting up straighter in his seat, Captain Picard directed his gaze to the pale-skinned man sitting at the Ops console; he seemed to be the only one least affected by the abrupt maneuvers. It was to him the Captain spoke.

"Mr. Data, what happened?" he demanded in a thick British accent.

The pale man — who was in fact an android, but as much a part of the crew as anyone else, a valued and seasoned officer — studied the readings on his monitor intently, eyes flicking to take in the compiling information.

"I am uncertain, Captain." When Data spoke, his expression never faltered, his eyes never wavered, and his voice never skipped beat. He spoke with exact, machine-like precision and clarity. No detail, ma'am; just the facts. Picard sometimes envied that about him. "It seems there was a high buildup of verteron particles outside the hull before the blackout in sensors and communications, sir." He swiveled his chair around to look directly at his superiors. "I estimate that we have traveled through some form of spatial anomaly, most likely a wormhole or a temporal rift."

"Data, how is that possible?" William Riker demanded with a touch of asperity. He hated being kept in the dark and he was hoping that Data would clear that up as soon as possible. "Last time I checked, there weren't any wormholes or other significant spatial anomalies in this sector."

"I do not know, sir," Data responded, turning back to face his console. "I will, however, need to wait a minute before running a full scan."

"Well, figure it out soon," he said, directing his attention to the long-haired woman sitting on the opposite side of him, a small smile drifting across his face. "Because we've got somewhere more important we need to be," he added with a slight wiggling of his eyebrows.

Next to the Captain, Deanna Troi smothered a laugh. Captain Picard gazed sadly at the both of them. Before the unexpected detour, the _Enterprise_, his ship, had been on its way to Earth so that they could participate in the Earth-based ceremony of Troi and Riker's wedding. He had come to think of them both as family, and he would be very sad to see them go, but they had made their decision and he respected it. As a Starfleet officer, it was his job to perform this final duty for them. Still, they seemed to have a mystery on their hands, and as Captain he required all crewmen to focus on the task at hand.

"One step at a time, Number One," Picard reminded him with a slightly remonstrating smile. Riker looked sheepish all of a sudden and nodded his assent. "First we need to find out where we are. Mr. Data?"

"Sensors are coming back online, sir," Data reported promptly. "I will get a more a more in-depth scan of our current location." He checked his displays, head tilting in that curious manner the android got when he was particularly intrigued by something. "This is puzzling... according to our astrometrics data, the closest star is NGC-5101. In the Keagan Spiral."

Picard shared a dumbfounded look with his first officer. _No_,_ I cannot have heard him correctly. He couldn't have said what I thought he said..._

"The Keagan Spiral? Data, that's..." Riker had trouble finishing the sentence.

"One point seven billion light-years outside the Milky Way Galaxy," Data replied.

Picard was tempted to curse in French or one of the various multitudes of languages he knew. The last time he could recall this happening they had traveled to the far-distant Triangulum Galaxy, or M33, and that hadn't exactly ended with favorable results. Judging from the mingled expressions of awe and dread on his senior staff's faces, he knew they were having the same thoughts.

"What about that wormhole or rift or whatever the hell it was we just passed through?" the Captain demanded, starting to lose some of his patience. If their experience with the wormhole was merely an isolated affair and it had collapsed or they could not use it again, they would be stranded in the recesses of space, and their chances of ever returning to the Federation, or indeed, anywhere else in the Alpha Quadrant, would be null. In that event, they might as well resign themselves to finding a habitable planetoid and settling down, eliminating their last ties to a galaxy long lost and the only home they had ever known.

"It is no longer there, Captain. Sensors show the wormhole collapsed shortly after we exited." Before the Captain or Riker could interrupt, he added: "However, I am detecting a high concentration of supercharged particles in the area. I believe it would be possible to reconstruct the wormhole, but it will require further study."

Before the Captain or Riker could say anything, however, Lieutenant Knightly piped in from tactical.

"Captain, long-range sensors are picking up a vessel approaching our current position," he said, disbelief evident in his voice. "Bearing one oh seven mark two one five."

"_What?_" Riker said, starkly incredulous.

Picard was equally flabbergasted. "How can that be?" he were at the farthest fringes of the known universe, beyond the range of even the fastest warp-capable starship. How was it possible that a ship had turned up on their scanners? It was then that the Captain wondered... was the ship indigenous to this galaxy? Did that mean it supported life, perhaps highly advanced civilizations capable of their own faster-than-light travel, traversing the stars, seeking out one another and new worlds...? This changed everything in Picard's opinion. Starfleet's policy was and always would be — to him at least, first and foremost — the exploration of new lifeforms and new civilizations. This more than certainly qualified.

"The ship is now entering visual range," Knightly's excited voice broke into Picard's thoughts, returning him to the present.

The Captain of the _Enterprise_-E, flagship of the Federation, got to his feet, plastering on the well-worn diplomatic face that had served him so well in the past: his features carefully arranged in an attentive but neutral mask, giving no outward indication as to what lie beneath the calm exterior.

"On screen," he ordered. The main viewer flickered to life. A white speck was just barely visible in the starfield. "Magnify."

The image of an immense colossus of a starship filled the viewscreen, slicing neatly through the blackness of space. The ship was a mottled white color, giving it a dull, unassuming appearance, if a little intimidating. Dotted across its arrowheaded-shaped superstructure were sharp little protrusions that looked suspiciously like weapons emplacements. A long, horizontal trench split open the sides of the ship like a ripe melon. And at the back of the ship stretched a vast collection of upraised platforms, all connected to a T-shaped tower that reached high above the stern, as if intent on watching over the vessel from its lofty position. All in all, the ship was quite unlike anything the Captain and his crew had encountered to date.

"Analysis, Mr. Data." Picard's voice betrayed none of the conflicting anxieties he felt upon seeing the vessel in all its majestic glory.

Data called up pertinent sensor information on his console, brows furrowing in puzzlement as he did so. "I am having trouble scanning past the outer superstructure. I will attempt to compensate." Data reworked the sensors to scan past the surrounding interference, but getting a precise scan proved much more elusive. His eyes roamed over the monitor, absorbing every piece of data in microseconds as his positronic brain analyzed the data to correspond with what he knew. "I am still having difficulty in getting a clear reading, but I am learning much from my endeavors."

"Data, just tell us what you know," Riker said exasperatedly as the starship drew ever more near.

"Aye sir," Data replied. "According to my readings, the ship's shielding and propulsion systems are operating at several orders of magnitude higher than our own. The power output for this one ship exceeds anything currently found in the Alpha Quadrant."

"How so, Data?" Picard asked. The ship was looming larger on the viewscreen now and Picard wanted to know everything about it that he possibly could. He hoped they were peaceful, but one never knew what to expect from first contact encounters. He hadn't planned on this and despite the unease growing in his stomach regarding this whole affair, he held out hope that perhaps this ship and its crew could help him and his people return home.

"The ship apparently utilizes some form of highly sophisticated quantum or slipstream ion drive which, when in effect, would propel the vessel to an excess of tens of millions of times faster than the speed of light at maximum velocity," Data explained.

"They could cross the galaxy in a matter of days, depending on the right conditions," Riker stated, eyeing the approaching ship with newfound admiration and a hint of some disbelief. Such advanced technology was beyond anything in the Federation's database.

"That is indeed the case, sir," Data confirmed, calling up new information on his display screen. "Sensors are also picking up the presence of dozens of defensive batteries capable of generating energy-based weapon discharges in the multi-gigaton range."

Picard did a double take. "Did you say multiple gigatons?"

"Yes sir," Data responded promptly.

"Unbelievable," Deanna stated softly.

"She's a warship," Picard breathed.

"Raise shields," Riker ordered, turning to the helm officer.

"No, Number One, we cannot," Picard said, moving closer to the viewscreen, his eyes never leaving the image of the steadily enlarging ship. "They are clearly much more advanced than we are and we can only hope that they are benevolent. No, we must not provoke them. Raising the shields could be construed as a hostile act. We will watch them and see what they will do."

Picard hoped he was making the right choice. Of course, it was highly unlikely they could survive against them for long even if their intentions were less than honorable. Such power was virtually unheard of in the Alpha Quadrant. Not even the Borg were as powerful as this single starship. He was going to be interacting with a species that came from a future the Federation couldn't even begin to conceive. What else was there to be done? At best, this was a ship that was heavily armed only as a precaution against aggressive races. At worst...

Riker echoed what was in Picard's thoughts. "And what happens if they do become hostile with us, sir?"

The vessel loomed larger and larger on the screen, until it looked like they were going to have a head-on collision; then, before it could tear through the _Enterprise_ and rip her to shreds, the ship slowed down, decelerating until it had achieved simultaneous orbit with the _Enterprise_, holding position one kilometer off the starboard bow.

"Then God help us," Picard murmured.

* * *

><p>The massive monstrosity that was the other vessel hung motionless in space, suspended in the interstellar void only by its powerful ion drives and the physical laws that apply in a weightless environment. Its unimpressive white hull gleamed dully with the reflected light of the system's primary. Within its hypermatter reactor core churned the compressed fusion of a dozen stars, providing the ship with an immeasurable supply of energy and the very useful function to remain self-reliant for an extended period of time. Alone, this virtual city of a starship fielded enough armament to subjugate an entire world. This was no lightly armed scout ship on a mission of peaceful exploration; it was a destroyer, nothing else, and no efforts were spared to conceal its true design.<p>

Atop this mountain of hardened alloy and armor plating stood the bridge, the ship's command nexus, nestled in between two spherical shield regulators. Inside the bridge, sealed off to the harshness of the vacuum by super-reflective transparent metal, Captain Jerec Tano of the Star Destroyer _Razer_ stared out the viewport at the other ship. He was a short man, only 5'7", but he carried himself with an officious grace that denoted very high rank or privilege. He possessed unremarkable black hair and sported a simple, nondescript gray tunic over gray trousers with a matching gray cap to finish the look. Men of similar attire and status worked diligently in the bridge's crew pits and work stations behind him, giving the whole room the feel of controlled order combined with the ever present atmosphere of military discipline.

Captain Tano was not a young man, now approaching his sixty-seventh standard year, yet this wasn't what he had been expecting to find when he had been ordered to change course and venture into this virtually deserted system. In his twenty-three years of serving in the Imperial Navy, he had never witnessed any other starship like this one, although it reminded him strongly of those damnable star cruisers that the Mon Calamari brought into battle against the Empire's formidable battleships. The opposing ship was long, smooth, and sleek, with an angular saucer section and swept-back nacelles that definitely bore a striking resemblance to the Y-wings the Rebel scum used in raids on Imperial facilities.

"What have you found, Captain?"

Captain Tano froze immediately upon hearing the voice, the same one that had been responsible for his change in course heading. The voice was deep and conveyed a synthetic bass rumble laced with dark overtones, as though a man were speaking from behind a mechanical apparatus, and, indeed, that was precisely from whence it came. With a palpable feeling of dread, the Captain turned to face Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith. The cybernetic being towered menacingly over him, bulbous, fish-eyed goggles glaring ominously into him with razor sharp attentiveness. The familiar cadence of his mechanical breathing accompanied the Sith Lord's every word, and was arguably one of the most feared sounds in the galaxy. At this moment, staring directly into the Sith Lord's hollow mask and feeling as though he were staring into an empty void, the Captain could not disagree.

He snapped up smartly and slid his heads behind his back with expert precision. "My lord, we've come out of hyperspace at the coordinates you have given us. Unexpectedly, we have come across a ship the likes of which we have never encountered before, though it does bear more than a passing similarity to Rebel ship designs."

The huge, black form of the Sith Lord strode past the Captain and approached the viewport, presumably to gaze at the starship himself, and Captain Tano felt himself barely restrain a sigh of relief, the only outward indication of the state of his emotions the slight relaxing of tension around his clasped hands.

"I must know more about that ship," the Dark Lord muttered softly, indecipherably, almost as though he were speaking to someone standing outside of the range of his perception. He turned his head back towards the Captain and spoke more boldly, as if he was just coming out of a trance. "Have your men compiled a detailed sensor analysis, Captain Tano?"

"I am about to receive a report, lord," Captain Tano responded crisply.

As if in response to this statement, a junior lieutenant walked up beside his commanding officer and handed him a datapad. The _Razer_'s Captain took the pad and briefly inspected its contents, studying the information collected by his ship's powerful sensor array and committing that information to memory. After he had finished with this minor task, he moved down the bridge and offered the datapad to Lord Vader. The Dark Lord of the Sith accepted the pad without a word and examined it, Captain Tano wordlessly falling back into a military stance.

"You're sure of your findings?" Vader demanded after a moment of perusing the pad.

Tano turned to the junior officer, who nodded once, and returned his gaze to Vader. "We are, my lord."

Lord Vader was silent for a long moment, and Captain Tano stiffened, feeling the faint ghost of tension work itself around his throat, and he brutally suppressed a nervous gulp. What was so important about this single ship that could have the famed Dark Lord of the Sith so quiet and introspective? From what he'd read through on the datapad, this ship was nothing special. In fact — while it was more streamlined and innovative in several areas, such as power generation and subspace harmonics — it was actually quite inferior in many others, such as weapons, sublight and superluminal propulsion, and shields. He and his crew could easily destroy this inferior space vehicle with one barrage from their antifighter batteries, to say nothing of the enormous ship-to-ship turbolasers that the _Razer_ wielded, which were so powerful in and of themselves that it was within their capacity to reduce the surface of an entire inhabited planet to molten slag in less than a day without reinforcements.

He was about to tentatively venture a question when the Dark Lord turned, facing the viewport once again, and his orders flowed smoothly from the vocabulator, strong and without hesitation. "Captain, prepare boarding parties. I want you to use the ion cannon to disable that ship, and once she is dead in the water, I expect you to send over boarding craft to capture the enemy vessel intact."

"Intact, my lord?" the Captain offered meekly, surprised by this sudden turn of events and why Vader would insist on sending boarding teams when it was all the more simpler to just destroy them. He would never dream of questioning a Sith's motives, he was much too loyal an officer for that, but boarding an alien ship which they had no intel on was tactically unsound.

"You have your orders," Vader reiterated firmly. "I sense something about that ship. Something I have not felt before..." Suddenly, Vader straightened up, and with a very precise movement he turned and stalked off the bridge. "I must investigate it." And with that, the Sith Lord was gone.

"What do we do, Captain?" his junior lieutenant asked.

"We will do as he has instructed us, Lieutenant," Captain Tano replied curtly. "Follow his orders. Order the weapons crews to stand by. Prepare to fire a full spread of the forward ion cannon. Leave no part of that ship untouched. Lord Vader wants it captured."

And as the crew moved off to comply with his command, the Captain stepped up to the viewport for the third time, staring at the mysterious ship that had somehow managed to catch the Dark Lord's attention. A brief flash of pity overtook him for the inhabitants of that ship, as their fate had been sealed and they were now at the mercy of the notorious Darth Vader, but it was quickly dispelled, and hard resolve swelled up inside him.

"And I intend to give it to him."

* * *

><p>Yeah, I just figured I'd join the oh so many who have written a <em>Star Trek<em>/_Star Wars_ crossover fanfic. If anyone can suggest a better name for the captain, please let me know. I'm not entirely satisfied with it. BTW, can anyone spot the _Independence Day_ reference?

Anyway, please review!


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